Listen Live: The First Public Performance of Music by Auschwitz I Men’s Orchestra Since the War
A University of Michigan scholar unearthed the musical manuscript penned by three Polish prisoners in the archives
By Brigit Katz
smithsonian.com
November 30, 2018
The grim realities of Auschwitz often played out against a backdrop of jaunty music. An orchestra of prisoners was forced to perform as their fellow captives marched to and from work, and on Sundays, the musicians were tasked with entertaining Nazi officers.
Though the Auschwitz I men's orchestra was a fixture of the notorious concentration camp, few manuscripts of works arranged and performed survive to the present day. But as Sarah Laskow reports for Atlas Obscura, a University of Michigan researcher recently took a deep dive into one such manuscript at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum—and the piece will be performed tonight for the first time since the Second World War by the U-M Contemporary Directions Ensemble.
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/reconstructing-music-auschwitz-orchestra-180970915/#1fe1vWYJGJ7IPTkS.99
